An intense debate lately went viral across online platforms, following someone posed a query to women: which would you prefer be lost in a forest alongside a male or with a bear? Like all the most engaging thought experiments, it revealed vastly opposing perspectives and life encounters, illuminated chasms among genders, and was likely cause a deep personal dilemma for anyone pondering about it extensively. Additionally, there came the predictable coda in which men of a certain stripe took to the internet to tell women how foolish they were to select the bear and went on to describe the consequences they deserved for it. This at least allowed the women who were uncertain about their decision to decide with a new confidence.
Dramatising the Scenario
To Cook a Bear skillfully brings to life this nifty little setup. This six-episode drama is based from Scandinavian writer the novelist’s 2018 novel of the same name (translated in 2020 for English readers). It traces the tribulations of a clergyman (Gustaf Skarsgård) and his household as they come to start a fresh religious post in Kengis, an isolated settlement in Sweden’s north, in 1852. In a place with few pleasures, not one of the locals especially appreciate his strict approach to alcohol and revelry, but it is his defense of the poor – particularly the indigenous Sami, from among whom hails the pastor’s adopted son the youth Jussi (the young actor) – and his conviction in social justice and equal rights that sets him in direct opposition against the Kengis local authorities.
The Antagonists
Soon in cahoots against him are the sheriff the sheriff Brahe (Magnus Krepper), the intimidating factory proprietor the matron Sjödahl (the actress), seen early on firing a recently mangled worker with minimal compensation while he is still gibbering at the sight of his pulped hand, and anyone else who benefit from a populace who can be bought for a few bottles of liquor sold by the creepy shopkeeper Lindmark (the actor). Although, in fairness, Lindmark’s eeriness pales once travelling artist Beronius arrives on the scene (Simon J Berger, providing a performance of exceptional discomfiting power). While they remain – similar to the clergyman – only a little more than caricatures, they are at least effective ones.
Narrative Development
Once the foundations of tension planted, it is time to proceed to narrative business. The maid employed by the doctor, Hilda (Eleonoora Kauhanen), duly vanishes in the forest. Indications of her escape and animal scratches upon a trunk are found but she is nowhere to be seen. Rumours and anxieties of a man/maid-eating bear prowling the woods circulate, but the pastor has another theory which he and his ward set out to verify.
An Odd Beast
To Cook a Bear is a slightly peculiar show. It creates a strong impression of the desolation that lets suspicion and bias and grim legends thrive from the native legend that bears might be dominated or possessed by the spirits of humans. It avoids idealising the tough existence led by the residents, where brutality, be it from nature or people, lurks constantly at the periphery, poised to explode. Yet the personas seldom evolve beyond symbols – or perhaps, as the struggles amid fairness and revenge, rationality and religion, virtue and evil escalate, representative characters within a moral tale – which stops the whole thing fully becoming immersive.
Stylistic Shifts
Additionally, exist the many stylistically clashing instances in which the pastor’s ability to discover clues and determine Hilda’s fate becomes almost risible. He positions himself observing shattered containers and strands of fur within storage sheds as a fusion of Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes – with Jussi a rather hapless assistant figure (neither of whom were required to lick a mixture of blood spatter and saliva from his superior to confirm that indeed, it was clearly dried blood at the crime scene), before announcing his newest conclusion and pulling a body out of a swamp.
Opposing Goals
The local leaders are bent on demonstrating that the maid met her end by an animal, maybe to preserve the calm, or possibly to shield one of their own. The clergyman is bent on establishing otherwise, and the proof so quickly stacks up supporting his view that once more the drama’s plausibility and the viewer’s patience are tested. At its best, the series evokes memories of the adaptation a few years ago of Sarah Perry’s the serpent tale, with its evocation of the competing attractions and terrors presented by rational thought and religion. In its low points, it resembles a bear-themed police procedural. Nevertheless, it appears to offer the response to the earlier query: “Ladies, take the bear.”
The series streams on Disney+ now.
